"I love you, and it has nothing to do with you."
"Even the endless yearning in the night belongs only to me and won't be brought into the light."
"Perhaps it can only exist in the darkness."
Under the dim candlelight, a finger wearing a thimble traced the meticulously arranged verses of a poem, translating the obscure Western text into the common tongue. The beautiful, melancholy poetic mood in the poem, rendered in an elegant voice, lingered long and mournfully.
In the desolate room, the occasional rustle of mechanical operation and gear meshing could be heard. A pair of soft-lined hands flipped through the poetry collection.
Quietude leading to distant perspective—this was largely the characteristic of someone dedicated to self-cultivation.
"Oh dear, why are the lights off? Reading like this is bad for your eyes."
Like a stone dropped into a calm lake, the natural tranquility was shattered.
"Slap!" A palm hit the main light switch. The light, bright as day, instantly drove out all the darkness and the deliberately created literary atmosphere.
...Perhaps it wasn't a stone dropped, but a bomb.
The girl adjusted her tall top hat. Her lazy gaze fell upon the pink-haired girl Elysia who was standing at the doorway enthusiastically examining the mechanical creations in the room... and the helmeted head beside her Lin.
"Elysia, long time no see. And Mr. Lin, it's a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to the Spiral Workshop." She closed the book, set it aside, and politely gestured towards the two seats in front of her.
Lin's feet remained still. He stood at the doorway, scrutinizing the girl, whom Elysia introduced as the head of the Engineering Department, and the dizzying array of tools and finished mechanical products inside the room.
It had been some time since she took the position of Engineering Department Head, but Lin had never met her. Their only indirect interaction was when Elysia asked her to modify the Second Gymnasium.
To be honest, calling it a workshop was a bit inaccurate. Lin could see a myriad of overwhelmingly useless-looking creations, simply labeled with tape bearing meaningless names like "Texas Chainsaw Machine No. 3" on a lipstick tube. Compared to the orderly assembly line production and professional design of the R&D department, this place looked more like a private, self-indulgent corner.
Finally, Lin looked at the most incongruous object in the room.
The girl smiled lightly, holding up the poetry collection: "Interested? A collection of poems by some little-known medieval poets. It contains many interesting poems, at least for me."
"...The poem you just recited was by Goethe; that's not little-known."
"'I love you, and it has nothing to do with you' first appeared in Goethe's work, so the poem I Love You, and It Has Nothing to Do with You is generally believed to be his creation. But in fact, the author is a female poet." The girl ran her finger along the edge of the poetry collection, staring at Lin with interest. "More than the poem, I'm more interested in the poet's life. Her legendary experiences in romance and revolution might be more widely circulated. It's recorded that her second husband separated from her because he couldn't tolerate having only one wife..."
She tapped the book cover: "A truly interesting life, isn't it?"
"..."
"I seem to have gotten a little too engrossed. Please take a seat first, both of you."
"Hmm, is it 'Grrreat' Writer Vil-V today?" Elysia sat down with a beaming smile.
"It should be called... 'Grrreat' Artist." Vil-V returned the smile.
Lin walked up next to Elysia, standing as straight as a pine tree. He had no intention of sitting, but Elysia casually pulled him down onto the seat.
"It really is as described in the book, your personality." Vil-V noticed their small interaction, her tone ambiguous, not quite mockery. "Five-colored white? Multicolored black? I can't quite describe it. Someone who understands color better than I do should know how to describe you."
"Why does it have to be a color?"
"Who knows? I don't even know what I'm thinking."
Vil-V's manner of speaking was different from everyone else Lin knew. She seemed kind and polite but was incoherent and full of leaps and "radio waves," possessing the style where genius and madness were separated by a single line.
Lin was about to start the formal topic when Vil-V's eyes lit up, staring at Lin's powered armor and exclaiming, "Oh~ Your equipment is more avant-garde than the previous design, but it still lacks my favorite exhaust fan design. It could both reduce the armor load and dissipate heat for the wearer. Delta is truly old-fashioned."
Would the expelled heat really not cook the wearer?
"...Speaking of which, you seem to have given him some design advice."
For example, the Phase Teleportation Device that nearly caused Lin to die violently right in the Moth of the Fire Chasers' headquarters bore the shadow of her involvement. Genius mechanical engineer—that's what she should be called.
Vil-V counted on her fingers: "Phase Teleportation Device, miniature Titan energy, integrated information system, equipment backpack... Which one are you referring to?"
"..."
Lin was surprised that she had been involved in so many pieces of equipment. He was starting to worry about the stability of future equipment. Hopefully, the Titan wouldn't include features such as increasing the internal temperature based on the pilot's emotional value to achieve a "burning up" effect.
"I'm here this time because I have something to ask of you." Lin steered the conversation back on track. Continuing to diverge might involve topics that would give Delta and him a brain hemorrhage.
"Sure. Is it equipment modification or discussing poetry? Discussing poetry is limited to today. Tomorrow's topic is cooking, the day after is mysticism, and the day after that is magic... By the way, magic can actually be done anytime, but I prefer performing tricks to discussing techniques."
Lin waited for her to finish before speaking: "The Deepest Reaches."
"Oh? My new creation. Interesting." Vil-V wasn't very surprised. "To be honest, I'm not very satisfied with it. After all, most of the designs inside weren't according to my wishes..."
"I'm not here to discuss technical issues with you." Lin felt it necessary to curb Vil-V's frequent tangents, a trait very similar to Delta. "I want to know how to get there."
"How to get there?"
Vil-V squinted, her distinct heterochromatic eyes staring at Lin.
"Why do you want to go there?"
"I need to verify some things without the Moth of the Fire Chasers finding out, and that requires your help."
"'Neither a wise man nor a fool can harm; the most dangerous is one who is half-wise and half-foolish.'" Vil-V nodded. "Instead of following the rules without knowing why, it's better to seek the truth yourself. In this aspect, you're already different from what's written in the book."
"What book?" She had mentioned "the book" twice now. Lin raised an eyebrow and asked.
"Here."
A hardcover edition of One Hundred Questions for the Silent Helmet was placed on the table.
Lin glanced at Elysia, who whistled nonchalantly, pretending not to notice.
"Although The Deepest Reaches was built by me, the management rights are not in my hands, so even I can't let you go there openly."
Lin retorted: "But you are the builder, so you likely left a secret entrance inside."
"You guessed correctly on that point. I generally leave a backdoor in my creations."
Vil-V crossed her arms, looking at Lin's viewport, meeting his gaze.
The main light above suddenly went out. The heterochromatic eyes glowed in the darkness.
"But what conditions do you have to convince me to help you?"
Lin left with the so-called "backdoor." Elysia walked over to the switch again and turned on the light, making the room bright again.
"Was turning off the light one of your little magic tricks?" Elysia looked up at the light bulb.
"I just had the switch in my hand." Vil-V showed the small switch hidden in her sleeve, smiling triumphantly. "Don't you think using glowing contact lenses after turning off the lights gives off a sense of oppression? It's very much like the villains in some stories."
"I didn't expect you to agree to Lin so easily. That was a little unexpected."
"Agree? No, no, no, I didn't agree. He just found it himself; it has nothing to do with me."
Vil-V cleared her throat, returning to her elegant, poetic demeanor. She sighed lightly, looking in the direction Lin had left:
"You have no end; this is your greatness.
You have no beginning; this is your fortune.
Your song revolves like the starry sky,
The beginning and the end radiate the same brilliance."